The winner of the 2014 Sustainability Award is urging other companies to enter the competition in 2015.
Earlier this year, Premiere Furniture had its efforts towards sustainable working recognised when it won the prestigious award organised by The Furniture Makers’ Company, the furnishing industry’s charity.
The award is based on the foundation provided by the Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme, FISP, administered by FIRA, with a rigorous audit of members’ activities. All FISP Full Members which manufacture in Great Britain are eligible to apply.
Steve Barton, Standards and Accreditations manager for Premiere, explains: “Through our membership of FISP we have put in place a number of measures and investments to help us work more sustainably. This included a significant investment in a biomass facility which has enabled us to reduce our landfill waste from approximately 2475 tonnes per annum to zero.
“The biomass facility also provides us with hot water which heats our entire facility, enabling us to remove our gas supply and reducing our impact on the environment further still.
“As well as the positive impact on the environment, FISP membership helps us instantly prove our credentials and with sustainability now a consideration in most tender documents, this has helped us to win contracts. We were thrilled to win The Furniture Makers’ Company Sustainability Award in 2014 and highly recommend others to enter the competition.”
A FISP member since 2006, Premiere provides cost-effective kitchen and furniture solutions for residential developments, hotels, key worker accommodation, care homes, universities, schools and the Ministry of Defence. The judges were impressed by Premiere’s comprehensive entry, demonstrating quantifiable results on all the key qualification criteria across every aspect of its business, such as environmental impact, waste, energy, packaging, transport issues, purchasing policies, training, education and employment.
The Sustainability Award is presented each year to recognise improvements in furniture manufacturing sustainability in its widest sense, looking at all aspects of how a business is operated – waste and energy management, design/process/product improvements, packaging, transportation, procurement, end of life management, client relationships, supplier management, employee engagement and corporate social responsibility.
FISP certificated companies are invited to submit case studies for consideration by a panel of judges who will select the manufacturer deemed to have made the best contribution to sustainable manufacturing in the previous year. The size of the business concerned will be taken into account so that the relative importance of their progress can be measured to equalise opportunities.
Sustainability is also one of the criteria used when assessing eligibility for the ultimate select award of The Furniture Makers’ Company Manufacturing Guild Mark, limited to the top 50 British furniture manufacturers. FISP certified companies are also encouraged to apply for this.
